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Education for Librarianship In Indonesia

WILLIAM LANDRAM WILLIAMSON

EDUCATION for librarianship in Indonesia is now in a position to move forward decisively. I reached this optimistic conclusion in the summer of 1970 when I had an opportunity to observe the changes that had taken place in Indonesian librarianship during the eight years since I was last in that beautiful country. At the end of my six-week visit, I felt considerable confidence that, given generous support and imaginative leadership, the library school in Djakarta can become a major educational facility for the whole of Southeast Asia. In addition, training programs in at least four cities have begun to-prepare library technicians to fill subordinate positions and, for the time being, to take charge of many libraries. Certainly no one familiar with librarianship in Indonesia can blink the major deficiencies and the great needs, but there is now.sound reason to be hopeful.

I was last in Indonesia from 1960 to 1962 as Library Consultant to the Ministry of Education-Ford Foundation-State University of New York Project for assisting teachers colleges in Bandung and Malang on Java and in Medan on Sumatra. Although most of my colleagues in the project served in only one location, I travelled frequently through-out Java and to Northern Sumatra. I thus had an unusual opportunity to become familiar with library policies and practices in much of Indo-nesia. During 1970, I again was able to travel a great deal. My assign-ment was to serve as consultant on university library development to the Directorate of Higher Education under a contract between the American Library Association and the United States Agency for Inter-Williamson is a Professor in the Library School, University of Wisconsin. national Development. My wife and I went by car from Djakarta in West Java through Bogor, Bandung, Jogjakarta, Salatiga, Semarang, and Malang to Surabaja in East Java. We then went by air to Makassar in the Celebes and I went alone to Padang in West Sumatra. In Djakarta itself, I was able to visit many libraries and also the library school. Following these visits, my first major conclusion was that preparation of librarians was the prime essential for further progress.

The need for more librarians in Indonesia is great and is expected to continue for years to come. One estimate is that there are now about three thousand libraries and fewer than four hundred librarians, only a small number of whom have full professional education. A topnotch facility for educating qualified librarians is obviously required.

The Djakarta Library School has dedicated itself to preparing grad-uates of high quality. Starting in 1952 as a training course of two years following high school graduation, the school was under the control of the Library Bureau of the Ministry of Education and Culture for most of its history up to 1959, when it became formally an independent school and expanded its term of study to three years. In 1961, the school be-came a part of the University of Indonesia, first as a department of the Faculty of Education and, after September, 1963, of the Faculty of Arts.2 A major benefit achieved by associating the school with the uni-versity was a new authority to grant a bachelor’s degree rather than the certificate previously awarded. For a time after the administrative trans-fer, the school remained in its independent quarters in the center of Djakarta, but it has now moved to Rawamangun, a university complex on the outskirts of the city.

The library school’s present location and administrative subordination as a department of the Faculty of Arts bring considerable strength both in its academic roots and in its hearty support from the Dean of the Faculty, Harsja Bachtiar, one of Indonesia’s most respected social sci-entists. The remoteness from downtown Djakarta and the move from independent and distinctive quarters constitute losses suffered by the school in the change. The school’s library is housed in a separate room in the Faculty of Arts buildings and thus, despite a sad decline over the past few years in the quality of its collection, it serves as something of a focal point for the school. The only other space dedicated to the school’s exclusive use is a dark, hot, and uncomfortable faculty office. Classes meet in a variety of different rooms. Although the school seems to fare about as well as other departments, it urgently needs the sense of identity and the support to student and faculty morale that its former separate quarters provided. Minor re-allocations of space could provide some of these benefits at least in part and on an interim basis.

Although housing is a problem, the school is making progress that warrants optimism. Headed now by Mrs. Rusina Sjahrial, formerly Librarian of the prestigious Library of Political and Social History, the faculty members include Mrs. Lily K. Soemadikarta, formerly of the Library of the Institute of Agriculture in Bogor, Miss Soenarti Soebadio, formerly Librarian of the Faculty of Arts and recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin Library School, and Mr. Rochjani who has served as a member of the faculty for a number of years, as well as a number of part-time instructors from among the librarians of Djakarta. Rochjani has now returned from study in Denmark and it is expected another member of the faculty soon will go overseas for further training. In these assignments, the library school faces the question, common in de-veloping countries, whether to allow a person sorely needed at home to leave for study that will increase his later effectiveness. There is no easy answer to this dilemma of the wisest balance between the urgency of present needs and the hope of long-term improvement.

At present, the decisions seem weighted in the direction of funda-mental reform even at the cost of some immediate losses. By September, 1963, when the school transferred to the Faculty of Arts, it had awarded 172 certificates or degrees .3 In 1969, the number reached 287.’ Finally, in 1969, the facuIty and administration decided to. raise admission standards to require a bachelor’s degree in a subject field and to award a master’s degree at the end of a two-year course of study. Since the duration of college study in Indonesia is three years, the school’s grad-uates will complete five years of higher education as do library school graduates in the United States. \Vhen those students who entered be-fore the change have completed their studies, the school will cease to offer the bachelor’s degree.

The thoughtful evaluation behind these changes has produced also some concrete new plans by the faculty of the library school and out-side consultants. In March and April, 1970, Robert D. Stevens, Dean of the Graduate School of Library Studies of the University of Hawaii, visited Djakarta under the sponsorship of the United States Information Service to survey the prospects. His report summarizes estimated needs of two hundred librarians for universities, more than a thousand for public and school libraries, and an additional unspecified number for archive collections, documentation centers, and other special libraries. By the time of Stevens’s visit, the school had admitted 30 candidates for the master’s degree, nine of whom were expected to complete their work during 1970. In succeeding years, the projections call for gradual increases in students and staff. By 1973, nine Indonesian faculty mem-bers and 60 students are to make up the school, with 30 graduates in that year. During 1974, a new school is planned for Jogjakarta and, during 1975, for Makassar. By 1979, the hope is to admit one hundred students to each of the three schools, to have 48 faculty members, and to award 275 degrees annually. Visiting instructors from overseas are to be sought during the early years to help with planning and instruc-tion. Stevens returned during the spring of 1971 as the first of these visitors. His stay complemented an in-service training program for Asian library school faculty members with federal funding at the Uni-versity of Hawaii under the auspices of the library school and the East-West Center.5

These optimistic plans promise to put Indonesian librarianship on a sound footing at a high level of competence. Meanwhile, however, those three thousand libraries need staff members. In 1969 and 1970, Thomas Spooner, an American librarian then serving as Book Program Officer of the United States Information Service, offered short training courses in Djakarta. Although he has now moved to Bangkok as Regional Book Program Ofhcer, he planned to return to Djakarta during the spring of 1971 to offer the course again. Indonesia’s National Scientific Documen-tation Center under the direction of Miss Winarti Partaningrat offered, in 1969 and again in 1970, a training course of its own. And, also in 1969, the library of Hasannudin University in Makassar offered a sim-ilar course. Since the University Librarian, Abdul Rahman Rahim, has now transferred to the public library of Makassar, the course is likely to be offered in the future under those auspices.

In addition to these programs offered from time to time, two other training courses are being presented at regular intervals with settled curricula. At Gadjah Mada University in Jogjakarta, a committee of librarians under the chairmanship, in 1970, of Dra. Sri Sawittri-Soeharto offered the third class of its "Library Science Upgrading Course."

The class was limited to an enrollment of 40 for a period of five months of study, consisting of three days of classroom instruction and additional days of practical work in nearby libraries. One full week of practice work was given under direct supervision of the chief librarian. Admis-sion requirements include graduation from high school, typing ability, proficiency in English, and at least three years of experience working in a library. The curriculum centers around four basic subjects, Collec Building, Cataloging and Classification, Reference, and Operations and Management, and inciudes additional instruction in the history of libraries, types of libraries, and other such matters.’

In Bandung, the library of the Teachers College under the super-vision of Soejono Trimo, the Chief Librarian, offers a course parallel to that offered at Gadjah Mada University. This program has differences in that it lasts for six months rather than five and that it requires a bachelor’s degree for admission. Its curriculum adds to the subjects taught in Jogjakarta courses in documentation, charging systems, guid-ance and counseling, research methods, authorship, and English.’ Both programs award a certificate rather than a degree. In Bandung, a plan has been formulated that would create an Academy of Library Science. It would occupy the ground newly vacated by the Djakarta Library School by admitting high school graduates and awarding them a bach-elor’s degree following three years of study that would include basic library science subjects as well as a number of courses in teaching, psy-chology, languages, and the literature of various disciplines.s As re-cently as September, 1970, the Directorate of Higher Education had not approved establishment of the academy.

Clearly, education for librarianship in Indonesia faces great chal-lenges and at least one crucial issue. The academy proposal envisions the preparation of two levels of professional librarians in addition to paraprofessionals who would continue to come from various training courses. The choices must be made in the face of severe shortages of people to man the existing libraries and those to be created in the near future. In particular, a demand for teacher-librarians is likely to exert strong pressure for the establishment of training facilities to prepare graduates to handle library responsibilities in the schools. The danger is, of course, that this specific training need will set a standard for the library profession in Indonesia that will limit the vision and competence available in libraries of all sorts throughout the nation.

Opinions on the matter differ. My own convictions in favor of concen-tration upon the preparation of librarians of high competence led me to recommend that the temptation be resisted to meet the need for pro-fessional librarians by creating additional agencies in competition with the library school at this time. Training courses for paraprofessionals, of course, would continue. I urged that both the Indonesian govern-ment and foreign aid agencies concentrate upon providing the resources necessary to build upon the strength and experience of the Djakarta Library School. In the particular matter of university library development that was my specific assignment, it was clear to me that the first essential for improvement was the preparation of a substantial number of well-educated librarians who could wisely shape the growth of uni-versity libraries. What choices Indonesian library and educational lead-ers will make are yet to be seen.

References

1. Inter University Library Conference, Djakarta, 30 October-l November 1969: Pro-ceedings. Djakarta, Lembaga Perpustakaan, 1970. English translation, typed, p. 125).

2. Trimo, Soejono: The Education and Training of Indonesian Librarians: Problems and Prospects. Bandung, Library Bureau, IKIP. 1970. Mimeographed, p. 9 (Paper de-livered at Conference of South East Asian Librarians, Singapore, August, 1970).

3. Dunningham, A. G. W.: Library Devdopment in Indonesia, Paris, UNESCO, 1964, p. 12.

4. Institut Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan, Bandung, Biro Perpustakaan: The Plan of the Establishment of an Academy of Library Science in Bandung. Bandung, Library Bureau, IKIP, 1970. Mimeographed, p. 1.

5. Stevens, Robert D.: Needs of the Department of Library Science, University of Indo-nesia, Djakarta, Faculty of Letters, University of Indonesia, 1970. Mimeographed, 5 pages.

6. Gadjah Mada University, Library Science Upgrading Course: Pengurnuman tentang Pembukaan Upgrading Ilmu Perpustakaan, Angkatan keIII [Announcement concerning the opening of the Library Science Upgrading Course, Number Three] ; Bulletin Upgrading Ilmu Perpustakaan [Bulletin of the Library Science Upgrading Course]. Jogjakarta: Gadjah Mada University, 1970.

7. Ref. 2, p, 13 and Appendix II.

8. Ref. 4, 5 pages.

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